The greatest match I saw Serena Williams play was one in which she wasn’t very good.

At Wimbledon two summers ago, Williams came to London after winning the Australian Open and then the French Open. At 33, she was trying to do the one thing she had never done — win all four Grand Slam titles in a calendar year — and it was all anyone wanted to talk about. Anyone other than Williams. She pushed past all questions about the Slam, saying it was hard enough to focus on one tournament at a time, and it was evident that she was feeling unusual pressure.

And then, in the third round at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club, she found herself up against Heather Watson, a 22-year-old Brit who was playing out of her mind. Watson won three straight games to take the second set of their match, and then the first three games of the deciding third set. It was one of those moments that happens at a Grand Slam in which there is tennis happening all over the place, but suddenly everyone is focused on the same single thing.

Henman’s Hill, the sloping expanse of grass on one side of the club in front of a video wall, was teeming with locals severely refreshed with beer and, this being Wimbledon, Champagne. The scene was bananas. One British paper, in their overwrought way, would compare Serena to a “wounded lioness,” but the gladiator imagery wasn’t far off. Watson went up 40-0 in the following game, and the place was throbbing for the kill.

And then Williams roared back. She screamed and slugged her way around Centre Court, alternately shouting with exasperation and pumping her fist in exclamation. She would win the final three games of the match to take the third set 7-5.

“I’ve never heard boos here before,” Williams would say afterward. One imagines the crowd didn’t like it when the lion fought back at the Colosseum, either.

Aaron Favila / Associated PressAaron Favila /
AP

I thought of that match when Williams shocked the Internet this week with her photo that suggested she was 20 weeks pregnant.

Now 35, she won the Australian Open for the seventh time in January, which means she was in the early stages of pregnancy when she won her 23rd Grand Slam, breaking the record she held with Steffi Graf for most-ever in the Open era. It as at once one of the most amazing things an athlete has ever done, and yet also not that surprising at all: if Serena knew a baby was coming, she also knew that the tournament in Melbourne might be her last chance to break that record.

Like on that summer day in London, late-career Serena has shown a ridiculous ability to win even when the odds are against her. Down a break to someone 12 years younger in front of a braying mob? Compete in a Slam with a little Serena in the womb? Done and done.

A couple of months after that Wimbledon win, John McEnroe, the former champion and current television broadcaster, was asked about Williams’ place in the game. He didn’t think she was the best tennis player of all time, male or female, he said. He thought she might be the greatest athlete of the past 100 years.

There are few others who could reasonably lay claim to the title. The thing about Serena Williams is that she is so dominant in her sport that the only person who has ever been able to slow her down is herself. When she won the Australian Open in 2003 for her fourth straight Slam and her seventh overall at the age of 23, it was evident she had surpassed the ability of her older sister, Venus, and was as close to unbeatable as an athlete can be.

Adam Pretty / Getty ImagesAdam Pretty /
Getty Images Europe

Injuries developed, though, as did other interests, and Williams entered a period of years in which she was rarely as the top of her game. She won just two Slams in the four seasons from 2004-2007. At the time, when it often seemed as though Williams put as much time into her clothing and fashion ventures as she did into practicing tennis, this was seen as a significant blot on her resume.

But the passage of years, and Williams’ return to the top of the sport, puts that period of indifference in a different light. She has won 10 of her Slams, including the one whilst pregnant, after the age of 30. She crushed everyone in her early 20s, did some other stuff for a while, and then crushed everyone again in her early 30s.

Along the way, she has seen off countless rivals into their retirements. Martina Hingis is just a year older than Serena, and she was the best player in the world when Williams broke into the top-10. Hingis last won a singles Slam title in 1999. Williams won one in 1999, too. And then 22 more.

A couple of months after that match against Watson at Wimbledon, Serena was back in another tough fight, this time in the semis at the U.S. Open. Again, she wasn’t playing her best against a weaker opponent, this time Italian Roberta Vinci, but this time the crowd in New York was squarely behind her. She smashed, she screamed, everyone waited for her to go for the kill shot.

And then it didn’t happen. Williams lost, and didn’t get that calendar Slam.

I thought of that match this week, too. News that Serena will have a kid, like that loss, is a reminder that she’s human. Sometimes it is easy to forget.